Mistah Kinglake?'
'We had a mutual interest in what is known as a corpus delicti,' said the Saint solemnly, 'but I sold him my share. He's now checking the bill of sale. Do you follow me?'
'Nawsah,' said Port Arthur Jones.
'Then don't let it worry you. Read the morning paper for details. By the way, what is the leading newspaper here?'
'The Times-Tribune, sah. They put out a mawnin' an' evenin' paper both.'
'They must be as busy as bees,' said the Saint. 'Now don't forget our agreement. Five bucks per cop, delivered on the hoof.'
'Yassah. An' thank yuh, sah.'
The Saint grinned in his turn, and went to the bathroom to wash and change his shirt.
It was much later than he had meant to begin his real errand in Galveston; but he had nothing else to do there, and he didn't know enough about the entertainment potentialities of the town to be tempted by other attractions. It was most inconsiderate of Lieutenant Kinglake, he thought, to have refused to take his question seriously and enlighten him. . . . But besides that, he knew that his unfortunate discovery of the expiring Mr Henry Stephens . meant that he couldn't look forward to following his own trail much further in the obscurity which he would have chosen. It looked like nothing but cogent common sense to do what he could with the brief anonymity he could look forward to.
Thus it happened that after a couple of grilled sandwiches in the hotel coffee shop he set out to stroll back down into the business district with the air of a tourist who had nowhere to go and all right to get there.
And thus his stroll brought him to the Ascot Hotel just a few blocks from the waterfront. The Ascot was strictly a business man's bunkhouse, the kind of place where only the much-maligned couriers of commerce roost briefly on their missions of peculiar promotion.
Simon entered the small lobby and approached the desk. The plaque above the desk said, without cracking a smile: 'Clerk on duty: MR wimblethorpe.' Simon Templar, not to be outdone in facial restraint, said without smiling either: 'Mr Wimblethorpe, I'm looking for a Mr Matson of St Louis.'
'Yes, sir,' said the clerk. 'Mr Matson was staying here, but----'
'My name,' said the Saint, 'is Sebastian Tombs. I'm a mining engineer from west Texas, and I have just located the richest deposit of bubble gum in the state. I wanted to tell Mr Matson about it.'
'I was trying to tell you,' said the clerk, 'that Mr Matson has checked out.'
'Oh,' said the Saint, a bit blankly. 'Well, could you give me his forwarding address?'
The clerk shuffled through his card file.
'Mr Matson didn't leave an address. A friend of his came in at five o'clock and paid his bill and took his luggage away for him.'
Simon stared at him with an odd sort of frown that didn't even see the man in front of him. For the Saint happened to know that Mr Matson was waiting for a passport from Washington, in order to take ship to foreign parts, and that the passport had not yet come through. Wherefore it seemed strange for Mr Matson to have left no forwarding address--unless he had suddenly changed his mind about the attractions of foreign travel.
'Who was this friend?' Simon inquired.
'I don't know, Mr Tombs. If you could stop by or call up in the morning you might be able to find out from Mr Baker, the day clerk.'
'Could you tell me where Mr Baker lives? I might catch him at home tonight.'
Mr Wimblethorpe was a little hesitant, but he wrote his fellow employee's address on a slip of paper. While he was doing it, the Saint leaned on the desk and half turned to give the lobby a lazy but comprehensive reconnaissance. As he had more or less expected, he discovered a large man in baggy clothes taking inadequate cover behind a potted palm.
'Thank you, Mr Wimblethorpe,' he said as he took the slip. 'And now there's just one other thing. In another minute, a Mr Yard of the police department will be yelling at you to tell him what I was talking to you about. Don't hesitate to confide in him. And if he seems worried about losing me, tell him he'll find me at Mr Baker's.'
He turned and sauntered leisurely away, leaving the bewildered man gaping after him.
He picked up a taxi at the next corner and gave the day clerk's address, and settled back with a cigarette without even bothering to look back and see how the pursuit was doing. There were too many more important things annoying him. A curious presentiment was trying to take shape behind his mind, and he wasn't going to like any part of it.
Mr Baker happened to be at home, and recalled the incident without difficulty.
'He said that Mr Matson had decided to move in w,ith him, but he'd had a few too many, so his fritnd came to fetch his things for him.'
'Didn't you think that was a bit funny?'
'Well, yes; but people are always doing funny things. We had a snuff manufacturer once who insisted on filling his room with parrots because he said the old buccaneers always had parrots, and Lafitte used to headquarter here. Then there was the music teacher from Idaho who----'
'About Mr Matson,' Simon interrupted--'what was his friend's name?'
'I'm not sure. I think it was something like Black. But I didn't pay much attention. I knew it was all right, because I'd seen him with Mr Matson before.'
'Can you describe him?'
'Yes. Tall and thin, with sort of gray-blond hair cut very short----'
'And a military bearing and a saber scar on the left cheek?'
'I didn't notice that,' Baker said seriously. 'Mr Matson made a lot of friends while he was at the hotel. He was always out for a good time, wanting to find girls and drinking a lot. ... I hope there isn't any trouble, is there?'
'I hope not. But this guy Black didn't say where Matson was going to move in with him?'
'No. He said Mr Matson would probably stop in and leave his next address when he sobered up.' Baker looked at him anxiously. 'Do you have some business connection with Mr Matson, Mr-- ah----'
'Titwillow,' said the Saint. 'Sullivan Titwillow. Yes, Mr Matson and I are partners in an illicit diamond buying syndicate in Rhodesia. I hope I haven't kept you up. . . . Oh, and by the way. Don't jump into bed as soon as I go, because you'll have at least one other caller tonight. His name is Yard, and he is the Law in Galveston. Please be nice to him, because I think his feet hurt.'
He left the baffled day clerk on the front stoop, and returned to the cab which he had kept waiting.
He was whistling a little tune to himself as he got in, but his gaiety was only in the performance. The presentiment in his mind was growing more solid in spite of anything he could do. And he knew that he was only trying to stave it off. He knew that what-ever happened, Fate had taken the play away from him.
'My name, if anybody should ask you,' he said to his driver, 'is Sugarman Treacle. I am a Canadian in the lumber business. I have sold myself on the job of investigating public vehicles with a view to equipping them with soft pine blocks and coil springs as a substitute for rubber during the present tire shortage. Please feel quite free to discuss my project with any rival researchers who want to talk it over with you.'
'Okay, Colonel,' said the cabby affably. 'Where to now?' And then the Saint's presentiment was much too firmly ma-terialised to be brushed off. It was something too outrageously coincidental to have ever been intelligently calculated, and at the same time so absurdly obvious that its only concealment had been that it had been too close to see.
The Saint said: 'Do you know a joint called the Blue Goose?' 'Yeah,' said the other briefly. 'You wanna go there?' 'I think so.'
'I can get you in. But after that you're on your own.' Simon raised one eyebrow a millimeter, but he made no comment. He said: 'Do you think you could shake off anybody who might be following us before we get there? My wife has been kind of inquisitive lately, and I'm not asking for trouble.'
'I getcha, pal,' said the driver sympathetically, and swung his wheel.
The Blue Goose had a sign outside and several cars parked in front; but the door was locked, and the chauffeur had to hammer on it to produce a scrap of face at a barred judas 'window. There was a line of muttered introduction, and then the door opened. It was all very reminiscent of Prohibition, and in fact it was much the same thing, for the state of Texas was still working on the package store system and hadn't legalised any open bars.
